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Of: TT
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1 of 4 | Photo: Pontus Lundahl / TT
– When the first case came in Jönköping, I thought: if it ever reaches Rinkeby, what would it mean? says Amal Omar, who is a project manager for a crisis committee.
Here, covid-19 struck in full force this spring, against an already vulnerable group.
The society failed to protect people in the Stockholm Järva area, alerts a committee that will map the outbreak.
– We quickly realized that many around us got sick very early, says project manager Amal Omar.
A man with a stroller passes through Rinkeby Square. From the parking lot comes a woman who walks to say hello, friend of the crown. With gloves at a suitable distance, they do a high-five variant, where the backs of the hands rather than the palms meet in the air.
At the health center a stone’s throw away, one of the entrance windows has been covered with information in different languages.
A year ago, covid-19 was a virus in Wuhan, far from Sweden, Stockholm and Rinkeby. But this spring it came painfully close.
Crisis group started
Amal Omar is a project manager for the Crisis Committee, a non-profit initiative that began after spring reports of high infection rates in the Rinkeby-Kista and Spånga-Tensta districts, also called the Järva area.
It all started with the alarm from the Swedish-Somali medical association at the end of March. The association said that at least 6 of the 15 who died from the coronavirus in the Stockholm area were Somali Swedes, many of whom lived in Järva.
– For me it was a confirmation that things would go very badly in the area. When the first case came in Jönköping, I thought: if it ever reaches Rinkeby, what would it mean? We are already weak on resources, says Amal Omar.
The media attention after the alarm was great.
Shortly afterwards, the leader of the Christian Democracy party, Ebba Busch, wrote a debate article in which he explained the spread of the infection in Järva with, for example, overcrowding and lack of information channels.
Busch also wrote: “Illiteracy is widespread (for Swedish conditions) and Somalis do not have the same tradition of written information or medicine.”
“Vulnerable due to occupation”
Then it was broken by Mohamed Nuur, president of the Social Democrats in Tensta.
– Many citizens felt: but my God, it is not because of difficulties with the Swedish language that the virus spreads among us, says Mohamed Nuur.
The vulnerability was rather due to the individual’s living situation, says Mohamed Nuur, giving examples: many Järva residents work as taxi drivers or bus drivers, in caring for the elderly and medical care.
– No matter how you turn it around, they have been more exposed to the virus, due to their work.
The Swedish-Somali medical association was not wrong to sound the alarm, underlines the politician-S: “They raised the alarm to save lives.”
But Mohamed Nuur strongly opposes the ensuing debate, in which ethnicity was targeted and used as a bat in racist posts on social media, something the Expo drew attention to.
I wish people had talked, for example, about overcrowding in socially vulnerable areas.
Conduct study
The Crisis Committee also wants to draw attention to inequality in society. In one study, some 30 Järva residents will be interviewed in depth, mainly in the service professions, to highlight their stories and seek answers about the outbreak.
The committee questions the actions of both the authorities and the city in the area. Working from home, for example, doesn’t work for people in the service professions.
Amal Omar also mentions Stockholm City’s evacuation accommodation offer for people in risk groups, at a cost of approximately 4,500 SEK per month.
– Many wanted to participate in the accommodation, but nobody could afford it, says Amal Omar.
Anna König Jerlmyr (M), Stockholm City Councilor for Finance, believes that the rent for the accommodation was reasonable in terms of the price situation in Stockholm. She says that it was also possible to apply for financial aid.
– When I ask our administrations, they mean that the vast majority refused to evacuate the homes when it became known that they were only allowed to live there during the pandemic and not indefinitely, he says and adds:
– As far as I know, there is no other city in Europe that has offered evacuation accommodation. For us it was a way of allaying concerns and offering something concrete for people at risk.
“It was a war”
Anna König Jerlmyr says they worked a lot both with information written in different languages and with the presence in the districts during the spring, but admits that it can be more difficult for residents of socially disadvantaged areas to follow the advice of the authorities, such as teleworking.
– Here you have to show consideration and perhaps produce special efforts and recommendations for groups that, for example, cannot work from home, he says.
TT: Shouldn’t you have done it then?
– I want to be humble and say that we can always do more. But we faced an extremely difficult situation this spring in which we lacked protection materials, infection tracing and testing at the same time as there was a large general spread of the infection in society. It was a war fought.
Amal Omar is silent when asked if the Crisis Committee has seen any positive action in Järva since the pandemic began. Then comes the answer: No, on the contrary. She develops:
– The area has almost been liberated and work has not begun on the consequences that the pandemic will have on people in an already socially and economically vulnerable area.
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